Assignment — Angelina by Edward S. Aarons Page A

road.

Chapter Nine
    Durell got slowly to his feet. He felt bruised and shaken, but this did not trouble him as much as the fact that he had allowed his quarry to escape. A shouted question came from the bar. Jake Moon had stepped cautiously out into the dust left by the Cadillac's wild flight, Angelina behind him. She came running to him. "Are you all right, Sam?"
    "Not exactly. He picked up his gun and then the Colt he had knocked out of Mark Fleming's hand. He pocketed them both. He smiled thinly. "My pride is bruised. Did you call MacCreedy before Slago got to you?"
    She shook her head. "I didn't have a chance. He knew that Joe and I had followed him from town. He sneaked up on me in the bar. He... he touched me... like an animal... Her dark eyes were very wide, remembering. "What about Joe? Have you seen him?"
    "Ill look." He turned her back toward the bar. "Go ahead, call MacCreedy. And have Moon call the local sheriff. Well need to close off the roads."
    "All right."
    He watched her turn back toward the excited men in the bar entrance, and then he swung about and walked into Corbins cabin.
    The air conditioner still hummed quietly in the back window. Clothing was scattered on the beds, and two suitcases had been left behind, partially packed, abandoned in their sudden flight. Durell didn't touch anything. He rolled up the front window shades and heard a muffled sound from the bathroom, and went there and found Joe Tibault. The fisherman was bound and gagged, and he had bitten the inside of his mouth in his effort to scream. He had needed to scream, Durell thought bitterly. One arm had been dislocated, and there were knife wounds on his hands. Two fingers had been sliced off. He had been questioned expertly, without mercy. Slago obviously had wanted to know more about Joe Tibault and why Joe and Angelina had followed them back to the fishing camp. The gag had kept the shrimp fisherman from making noise during his moments of horror.
    'It's all right, Joe." Durell knelt beside the chunky, gray-haired fisherman and untied the gag. A gush of blood ran over the man's lip and down his chin. He coughed weakly, his hand on Durell's arm. "Can you hear me? You'll be all right now."
    "Crazy..." Tibault whispered. "The one with the knife. Laughing, saying he was going to carve me up... butchering me..." He looked at his bloody hand, where the two fingers were missing. Under his olive tan, his face was pale and moistly shining. His mouth worked for a moment and he coughed again, and spit out more blood. "Angelina?"
    "She's phoning the cops. Stay here, Joe. I'll get a doctor."
    "Never mind the doctor. Get them."
    "Well do our best, Joe."
* * *
    Three hours later Durell parked in the courthouse square of Bayou Peche Rouge and walked into the little park. He chose a bench under a live oak facing the courthouse, lit a cigarette, and waited for MacCreedy to come out of the bank nearby. The town, the square, the bench itself was as familiar to him as the palm of his hand. He remembered a night many years ago when he had sat on this bench with Angelina. He remembered the warm taste of her young lips, the amazing softness of her mouth as she kissed him. Babes in the wood, he thought. It was all over and done with. They were grown up now. Her father, who had resented him, had loomed in those days as an ogre, a spying, evil-tempered old man who had viewed him with suspicion — justifiably, Durell thought, grinning — and had cursed his daughter as a loose woman. The old man was dead now. It was all dead.
    MacCreedy came out of the bank and walked into the park. It was after five in the afternoon. Durell had decided not to appear publicly here as an arm of the law. It was MacCreedy's business, anyway.
    The FBI man had a newspaper under his arm, and he sat down on the bench with Durell and pretended to read it. "No luck, Sam."
    "They got through the roadblocks?"
    "We found the Cad ditched ten miles up the river. They didn't stay in it long. A